


The Melancholy of the Snark (A Fit in 42 Shivers)

by wrabbit



Series: The Melancholy of the Snark [1]
Category: Hunting of the Snark - Lewis Carroll
Genre: 42, Anapestic Tetrameter, Friendship, Gen, Gloriously Self-Indulgent, Loneliness, Non-human characters, Pastiche, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:55:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrabbit/pseuds/wrabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,<br/>Which it constantly carries about,<br/>And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes—<br/>A sentiment open to doubt."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Melancholy of the Snark (A Fit in 42 Shivers)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themadlurker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themadlurker/gifts).



> Thank you very much, Aris_TGD, for the 5 AM read.

The Snark's bathing machine was demolished, he saw --  
Its pieces were spread all around  
Where the Bandersnatch found it and opened her jaw  
With a frumious teething sound.

There were pipes in the trees -- broken screws in the grass;  
After piling with sadness and care  
A mound of celestial blue and pink glass,  
He located his swivel bath chair.

He was missing a fork -- he was missing a hinge;  
The Snark cried after searching all night,  
"The Bandersnatch during her bath machine binge  
Must have swallowed the thimble outright."

He followed the Bandersnatch into her cave,  
On a trail of rejected chewed gold --  
From the mud the Snark carefully gathered each shave,  
To his breast as he prepared a scold.

With wrothy dactylic hexameter verse,  
The Snark fashioned a rhyme for his case --  
Insufficient were tears for a speech to rehearse  
That the Bandersnatch would heed with grace.

The Snark soon found her nested and snoozling in bones,  
And the feathers of small gentle Drob;  
He cleared his throat, sore from heart rending moans,  
But could only feign speech in a sob.

"Your monocle's streaked with salt water tears,"  
The Bandersnatch started to speak,  
"A weakling aesthete, with bath soap in both ears,  
whose revenge is to bore me with Greek.

"A Boojum, so feared and hated by all,  
Can not even diminish the Drob  
Without throwing himself a bathetic long bawl --  
At least Death would not make my head throb."

The Snark's Grecian song of rage died in his chest --  
Repossessing his copper faucet,  
He shyly crept out like an unwelcome guest,  
With the tub with the pearls he inset.

Through the rain and the heat the Snark carried back home  
His great burden of bath machine parts,  
While the Drob hummed a song in a deep thrumming throme  
To comfort his three broken hearts:

The first for the land and the briny bice sea,  
One for creatures who lived in the green --  
For the Drob and the other such Snarks that might be,  
The third for his bathing machines.

For a month he unpuzzled the harlequin glass  
During every afternoon tea.  
But the curious Drob kept their space in the grass;  
For the Snark was a Boojum you see.

But without metal alloys made only by men,  
Not even the Snark's dainty zeal  
Could put the machine back together again,  
For the Bandersnatch scoffed stainless steel.

She ate every fork -- she swallowed each nob --  
Gnawing with epicaricacy,  
She gorged 'til he whimpered, and frightened the Drob,  
While mocking his delicate twee.

One afternoon, taking shelter in Drobbish tree shade,  
The Snark's loneliness crashed with the storm:  
"For what Pitiless reason were Boojums thus made,  
Untouched by any life form?

Lest they softly and suddenly vanish away,  
All but rain, wind and tasty Snark fruits;  
But to touch other Snarks who are Boojums some day!  
To share soap and my spare bathing suits."

The Drob purred while the rain washed away the Snark's tears;  
He continued to speak with a sniff,  
"My machine! I must fix it before they get here!"  
And he cleared his lens fogged from the skiff.

It rained then it poured and it rained even more  
While the Snark washed and rinsed in the spray --  
He imagined the land slowly joining sea floor  
And the Bandersnatch swimming away.

The water flowed down his scales shiny and green  
And into his fractured pearl tub.  
He smiled at the glint of a bolt in the rean.  
'Side the drowned Drobbish flowering shrub -

He said, "Only a fork and a thimble to find,  
And the pieces will then be replete.  
But even with bolt, screw and pipe realigned,  
Reparation shall be quite a feat.

As the sun broke the clouds -- and the Snark closed his speech,  
The Jubjub flew out of the west.  
With a shriek it wheeled through the spontaneous breach  
And disturbed the Drob's damp downy nest.

Unknown to the Snark, on the edge of the sky  
Something strange and unheard of approached --  
Clandestine white sails, bar the Jubjub's good eye:  
But the Snark was the one they encroached.

They sought him with thimbles -- and sought him with care,  
Arriving with forks and with hope,  
To threaten his life with a railway share,  
To charm him with smiles and soap.

The squawk sang again, it rent the sky thrice --  
To which the Snark hummed a reply;  
And the Bandersnatch, bane of mechanic device,  
Left her cave to gaze into the sky.

As the strangers swam towards the marbled pearl sand,  
They washed up with their Bees in a row --  
Wet clothes and wet fur at a Bellman's command,  
A lace project the Beaver mourned, "No!"

'Twas the Butcher the Jubjub was first to excite,  
And the Beaver who couldn't count three.  
Its bright song aroused so much love and delight  
That paired they forever would be.

The Bandersnatch was not entirely so kind  
When the Banker disturbed her noon nap.  
His waistcoat turned white when his bribe was declined,  
And for that we must pity the chap.

The Bandersnatch had no compunction as such,  
But she paused for the thing on his thumb --  
Extracting it out of the man's frightened clutch,  
Before he was made to succumb.

As the Bandersnatch pondered her ill-gotten thimble,  
The Snark was completely distraught --  
He had met with a Baker who was less than nimble  
And a touch had reduced him to naught.

He had come with a thimble, and forks on the offer --  
Prepared a few words of affection  
For the Snark's shyly interested glance at the proffer;  
It was quite the successful deception.

Nearly, but for a rock that provoked him to trip,  
And land in the Snark's helping grasp.  
'Twas as if from reality god chanced to snip  
A Baker whose last was a gasp.

So the Bandersnatch, when she decided, chagrined,  
To allow the Snark pick of her spoil,  
Found him helplessly weeping at nothing but wind,  
In the way that oft made her recoil.

Said the Snark, "A donation of bath machine parts,  
From a friend I gave naught but swift death."  
Then the Bandersnatch saw what he held to his hearts,  
And approached the trembling Snark.

She said, "Not a friend," but the Snark only sighed  
As he stared at the sly Baker's gift.  
"They came hunting a Snark, with that bait which he plied,  
With designs for your capture most swift --

"Each one came to harm us," she said to the Snark,  
But discerned that he could not believe;  
His eyes signed a lone interrogative mark -- "?" --  
Punctuation that must be perceived.

So the Bandersnatch told what she heard them declare,  
In words that she thought more discreet --  
That they hunted a Snark, with thimbles and care,  
That they hunted a Snark for his meat.

Then the dry-eyed Snark saw what she had in her claw,  
And said, "Do you hunt me as well?"  
Voice as helplessly brittle as eggs -- and as raw --  
That burst at one touch of her nail.

The Drob, during this Bandersnatchish reflection,  
Were beginning to anxiously twitch --  
As if Bandersnatch thoughts yield to Drobbish detection  
On event of their Drob-leaning pitch.

"Not a hunt," the Bandersnatch had to admit,  
"Though this is a thimble for you --  
Its previous owner is not even dead,  
Which I know you inclined to eschew."

The Snark looked at the thimbles and forks he now had,  
And thought of his bathing machine --  
And of being once more in his bathing suit clad;  
The Snark found he still wanted this thing.

The Bandersnatch felt very awkward by now --  
She had never done something so hateful  
As today for the Drob-loving scaly bath cow,  
And she loathed to now witness him grateful.

But the Snark only smiled at dear Bandersnatch then.  
It had been a most terrible day,  
But his hearts were dissolving in love for his friend,  
And tomorrow his faucets would spray.

THE END


End file.
